The debut mission of Northrop Grumman's new jumbo cargo spacecraft is going well.

The Virginia-based company's first "Cygnus XL" freighter arrived at the International Space Station (ISS) early this morning (Sept. 18), after a one-day delay.

The key moment came at 7:24 a.m. EDT (1124 GMT), when NASA astronaut Jonny Kim used the orbiting lab's Canadarm2 robotic arm to grapple the Cygnus as the ISS flew about 260 miles (420 kilometers) above the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The Cygnus XL lifted off Sunday evening (Sept. 14), riding a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket into the skies from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The launch kicked off the 23rd cargo mission that Northrop Grumman has flown to the ISS for NASA, which explains its name — NG-23.

Not everything went smoothly. The Cyg

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